Ekinops Delivers 600G middle Mile Connectivity to Rural Service Provider Whidbey Telecom

　　Ekinops (Euronext Paris - FR0011466069 – EKI), a leading optical transport and network access specialist, is delivering its Ekinops360 optical transport platform to Whidbey Telecom, a rural service provider based in Washington state, to increase the capacity of its middle mile transport network.

　　Founded in 1908 as Whidbey Telephone Company, Whidbey Telecom has a long history of network innovation including early use of microwave transmission and submarine cables as well as being the first telephone company west of the Rocky Mountains to offer Internet services.  Today Whidbey Telecom provides service to hard-to-reach locations outside the Seattle metro region.  Despite their proximity to a major urban area, its South Whidbey, Hat Island and Point Roberts areas are considered rural and underserved due to their geographical remoteness.

　　Now Whidbey Telecom is enhancing its broadband service offering using Community Connect Grants funds issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program as well as middle Mile program funding from the NTIA to deploy a new high-speed Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network.  Recognizing that the projected increase in subscriber traffic caused by a combination of double-digit growth of data usage and higher connection speeds was more than its current infrastructure could support, Whidbey Telecom partnered with Ekinops to upgrade both the capacity and performance of its optical transport network.

　　Whidbey Telecom is deploying aggregation and transport solutions from Ekinops to upgrade critical areas of its middle mile network that connects its new FTTH sites to regional Internet exchanges that are remotely located.  Managed by Celestis NMS, Ekinops advanced transport network management tool, the Ekinops360 with the PM_600FRS06-SF FlexRate™ Muxponder will provide up to 600G of WDM transport capacity per-channel throughout the Whidbey service area over spans up to 90Km in length including an undersea span across the Salish Sea while lower speed cards provide service aggregation at the edge.

　　“This expansion will fully support our broadband initiatives and is really just the first phase of a strategic build for Whidbey Telecom,” commented Donna Hilty, COO of Whidbey Telecom. “It will also allow us to expand our wholesale service business providing backhaul services over our fiber network to our partner service providers as far away as Alaska.”

　　“Rural operators like Whidbey are essential to filling the gaps in the digital divide because they serve locations other providers do not,” said Joe Krzizike, Regional Vice President North America at Ekinops: “This use case demonstrates the flexibility and efficiency of the Ekinops360 platform by serving multiple applications from the same infrastructure and allowing Whidbey to create new revenue streams and fully leverage its investment.”